Flown with my Formula kit no problem, get a wheeled sail and mast bag and tie your board on to move around the airport.
Max weight 32 kilos per bag, best if going with friend as it only costs about £35.00 per bag return. One bag allowed per person, costs more for additional personal allowance.
Take blow up roof rack to transport on car.
Crash

Agrelon,
Get the regulations/prices from each airline you are condsidering.
Flying with gear can be a complete crap shoot. You are at the
mercy of the ticket counter personnel.
I would suggest getting:
1/ A mast/sail bag (with wheels is good).
2/ A heavily padded "travel" board bag.
3/ A boom bag (into which you can put mast bases/extensions/fins etc.
If you put it all in one bag, you may end up leaving it all at your departure
airport, or paying lots of money.
Try to keep the overall weight < 50 lbs. That seems to be the weight beyond
which they start charging overweight baggage fees.
On one trip to Bonaire, from Newark New Jersey, USA it cost me $850 USD
for 2 boards, 5 sails, 4 masts, 2 booms and several fins.
I had the Continental Airlines "WS" code printed out, but my interpretation and Continental Airlines interpretation were very different.
They added $100 per bag as this was a "divers" special flight and they expected really
heavy baggage from the divers so they were somewhat limited on the weight of baggage
they could carry.
I also flew to Thailand with sails/masts/booms on Northwest and the cost was around $250 each way.
I've been very lucky that none of my gear has been damaged, but I have spent alot of $$ on really good heavily padded bags.
So, take your credit card for the outrageous online baggage fees, and anticipate that they
may simply refuse to take your WS gear unless you pay some outrageous fee.
World class racers can relate some incredible stories about "traveling with gear".
Hope this helps,
Roger

Thanks for your help. Turns out I won't be flying with my kit straight away as my plans have changed and I won't be able to sail as much as I had intended in Europe after all, so it's not worth the hassle.

Looks like I'm stuck with my Bic 130l, which hates anything over 22knts, but that's the way it is. Will be hard not to have my trusty Futura 93l and RAM 5.8m with me for the next 1.5 months but that's life.

I'll take my good kit with me to Vancouver in September though, when I head off for uni.

Where will you stay in Europe? It's difficult now to rent good stuff except in a few mythical places, but you can certainly trade your old BIC 130L for a more recent kit. Prices of used gear have dropped down significantly. This been said, one week is short and wind is not granted.

Where will you stay in Europe? It's difficult now to rent good stuff except in a few mythical places, but you can certainly trade your old BIC 130L for a more recent kit. Prices of used gear have dropped down significantly. This been said, one week is short and wind is not granted.

My family have a small place in Brittany, I'll be there for about 3 weeks. Turns out I am taking my stuff in the end. Hopefully it'll be ok.